Michael J. Furlong

Developing Norms for the California Resilience Youth Development Module: Internal Assets and school Resources subscales

Resilience and other positive psychological constructs are gaining attention among school psychologists. Theoretically, external assets (e.g., support from caring adults, participation in meaningful activities) help to meet youths’ basic developmental needs, which, in turn, promote the growth of internal assets (e.g., ability to problem solve, empathize with others). Despite this knowledge, existing measures of resilience-building assets are underutilized. With the aim of facilitating broader access to and use of one strengths-based assessment tool, the current article attempts to further examine and increase the applicability of the Resilience Youth Development Module (RYDM) of the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS) for practicing school psychologists. The authors provide normative data on the internal assets and school-focused external resources subscales of the RYDM, while examining grade, ethnicity, and gender patterns.

Bridging the Transition to Kindergarten: School Readiness Case Studies from California's First 5 Initiative.

Recent advances in science have underscored how critical children’s first five years of life are to their later success in school and life. It has also been recently recognized that early childhood interventions, particularly those that combine child-focused educational activities with parent-child relationship building, can positively influence children’s readiness for school, particularly for those at-risk for poor developmental outcomes. Though early childhood services have traditionally received fewer resources than those for school-aged children or adults, many states have tried to address this inequity by sponsoring early childhood initiatives aimed at providing comprehensive health and social services to children ages 0 to 5 and their families. The current article presents an overview of one such initiative—California’s First 5—and provides three Southern California case studies of how it is being implemented at the county level. Implications for policy makers, school psychologists, and other educational stakeholders are discussed.

School Readiness Needs of Latino Preschoolers: A Focus on Parents’ Comfort with Home-School Collaboration

This study investigated the contextual, social, language, and learning factors that influence the success of Latino preschoolers transitioning to kindergarten. Data were collected on 112 Latino children who completed a four-week preschool program focusing on English language and school readiness skills. Predictive analyses indicate that their parents’ self-reported comfort with home-school collaboration was a stronger predictor of kindergarten success than the academic and social skills measured by this study. These findings suggest that school readiness is a product of the interactions between the child, family and school personnel. Relationships that parents and children experience with school personnel are essential, not only because of their continuing influence on children after they begin school, but also because they provide the opportunity for families to be the best resources possible for their children.

Are CAFAS Subscales and Item Weights Valid? A Preliminary Investigation of the Child and Adolescent Functional Assessment Scale

Presents a psychometric analysis of the Child and Adolescent Functional Assessment Scale (CAFAS), one of the most commonly used measures of functional impairment in youths with emotional and behavioral disorders. Specific aims of the current investigation were to (a) examine the conceptual organization of the CAFAS items, (b) explore its scaling properties, and (c) investigate its construct validity. In Phase 1, a group of advanced graduate students and clinicians rated CAFAS items with respect to the degree that they reflect the originally assigned subscales. In Phase 2, additional raters assigned severity values to the subset of CAFAS items selected from Phase 1. Items were then scaled using simplified successive intervals scaling techniques. Results show differences between new empirically derived item weights and the original scoring method. This investigation highlights the benefits of continued examination and critique of level-of-functioning scaling for diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis in children and adolescents.

Aggressive Behavior, Childhood

On a cold, windy morning in February in a suburb just outside Flint, Michigan, a six-year-old student at Buell Elementary School, armed with a .32-caliber handgun he had taken from his uncle’s nightstand, shot and killed his first-grade classmate. According to some of his classmates and his teacher, the youngster had quarreled with the girl the previous day and was still angry on the day of the shooting. His motive was to exact revenge (APBnews.com, 2000).

A general assessment procedure to measure children's schema acquisition

The theoretical and methodological underpinnings of a general procedure to assess the degree to which children have acquired cognitive schemas are presented. This procedure integrates prototype-plus-transfor-marion theory, sorting techniques, and statistical analysis from the quadratic assignment paradigm (QAP). The development and evaluation of appropriate stimuli to be used in this procedure are discussed, and an illustration of their use is provided. It is argued that this assessment procedure has broad applications for clinical interventions that attempt to train individuals to acquire and use new cognitive schemas or to restructure existing ones.